Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the visit of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, to the United States over the past several days. In the space of just 5 days, the Pope left a lasting impression in the lives of millions of his faithful followers, including many people from the State of Connecticut, thousands of [[Page S 14948]] whom journeyed to New York to see the Pope in person. As the Rev. Aldo J. Tos, pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village said, ``Let us say the stone has been dropped into the pools of humanity. We await the ripples.'' In the hope of stirring the pools and encouraging the ripples, I ask that the text of the Pope's homily at the Mass at Camden Yards in Baltimore on Sunday, as compiled by the Associated Press, be printed in the Record following my remarks. In that homily, the Pope speaks of timeless virtues with a timely message, asking us, `` `How ought we to live together?' In seeking an answer to this question, can society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can the Biblical wisdom which played such a formative part in the very founding of your country be excluded from that debate?'' Mr. President, we are at a moment in our history when society is engaged in serious debate over the place of moral truth in public policy, especially as we grapple with the deteriorating condition of aspects of our culture. The debate is alive in this Chamber, affecting our views and our votes on a wide range of government laws and programs that have an impact on the behavior and destiny of the people of this and other nations. As we participate in that debate, we would do well to keep these words of Pope John Paul in mind: ``It would indeed be sad if the United States were to turn away from that enterprising spirit which has always sought the most practical and responsible ways of continuing to share with others the blessings God has richly bestowed here.'' The spirit of America (the ``extraordinary human epic,'' as the Pope proclaimed) has been lifted up by the visit of this wise and holy man, and I hope his words will echo in millions of hearts and inspire many to do great things. As Pope John Paul II said, ``Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.'' The text follows: Transcript of Pope John Paul II's Homily at Camden Yards, Baltimore, October 9, 1995 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, each day, the church begins the Liturgy of the Hours with the pslam which we have just prayed together: ``Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord.'' In that call, ringing down the centuries and echoing across the face of the globe, the psalmist summons the people of God to sing the praises of the Lord and to bear great witness to the marvelous things God has done for us. The psalmist's call to hear the Lord's voice has particular significance for us as we celebrate this Mass in Baltimore. Maryland was the birthplace of the church in colonial America. More than 360 years ago, a small band of Catholics came to the New World to build a home where they could ``singe joyfully to the Lord'' in freedom. They established a colony whose hallmark was religious tolerance, which would later become one of the cultural cornerstones of American democracy. Baltimore is the senior metropolitan See in the United States. Its first bishop, John Carroll, stands out as a model who can still inspire the church in America today. Here we held the great provincial and plenary councils which guided the church's expansion as waves of immigrants came to these shores in search of a better life. Here in Baltimore, in 1884, the bishops of the United States authorized the ``Baltimore Catechism,'' which formed the faith of tens of millions of Catholics for decades. In Baltimore, the country's Catholic school system began under the leadership of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. The first seminary in the United States was established here, under the protection of the virgin mother of God, as was America's first Catholic college for women. Since those heroic beginnings, men and women of every race and social class have built the Catholic community we see in America today, a great spiritual movement of witness, of apostolate, of good works, of Catholic institutions and organizations. With warm affection, therefore, I greet your archbishop, Cardinal Keeler, and thank him for his sensitive leadership in this local church and his work on behalf of the bishops' conference. With esteem I greet the other cardinals and bishops present here in great numbers, the priests, deacons and seminarians, the women and men religious, and all God's people, the ``living stones'' whom the spirit uses to build up the body of Christ. I gladly greet the members of the various Christian churches and ecclesial communities. I assure them of the Catholic church's ardent desire to celebrate the jubilee of the year 2000 as a great occasion to move closer to overcoming the divisions of the second millennium. I thank the civil authorities who have wished to share this sacred moment with us. (Remarks in Castilian, followed by this English translation) . . . I greet the Spanish-speaking faithful present here and all those following this Mass on radio or television. The church is your spiritual home. Your parishes, associations, schools and religious education programs need your cooperation and the enthusiasm of your faith. With special affection, I encourage you to transmit your Catholic traditions to the younger generations. Our celebration today speaks to us, speaks to us not only of the past. The eucharist always makes present anew the saving mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, and points to the future definitive fulfillment of God's plan of salvation. Two years ago, at Denver, I was deeply impressed by the vitality of America's young people as they bore enthusiastic witness to their love of Christ, and showed that they were not afraid of the demands of the Gospel. Today, I offer this Mass for a strengthening of that vitality and Christian courage at every level of the church in the United States: among the laity, among the priests and religious, among my brother bishops. The whole church is preparing for the third Christian millennium. The challenge of the great jubilee of the year 2000 is the new evangelization: a deepening of faith and a vigorous response to the Christian vocation to holiness and service. This is what the successor of Peter has come to Baltimore to urge upon each one of you: the courage to bear witness to the gospel of our redemption. In today's Gospel reading, the apostles ask Jesus: ``Increase our faith.'' This must be our constant prayer. Faith is always demanding, because faith leads us beyond ourselves. It leads us directly to God. Faith also imparts a vision of life's purpose and stimulates us to action. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a private opinion, a remote spiritual ideal, or a mere program for personal growth. The Gospel is the power which can transform the world! The Gospel is no abstraction: it is the living person of Jesus Christ, the word of God, the reflection of the Father's glory, the Incarnate Son who reveals the deepest meaning of our humanity and the noble destiny to which the whole human family is called. Christ has commanded us to let the light of the Gospel shine forth in our service to society. How can we profess faith in God's word, and then refuse to let it inspire and direct our thinking, our activity, our decisions, and our responsibilities towards one another? In America, Christian faith has found expression in an impressive array of witnesses and achievements. We must recall with gratitude the inspiring work of education carried out in countless families, schools and universities, and all the healing and consolation imparted in hospitals and hospices and shelters. We must give thanks for the practical living out of God's call in devoted service to others, in commitment to social justice, in responsible involvement in political life, in a wide variety of charitable and social organizations, and in the growth of ecumenical and interreligious understanding and cooperation. In a more global context, we should thank God for the great generosity of American Catholics whose support of the foreign missions has greatly contributed to the spiritual and material well-being of their brothers and sisters in other lands. The Church in the United States has sent brave missionary men and women out to the nations, and not a few of them have borne the ultimate witness to the ancient truth that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity. In my visits to Catholic communities around the world I often meet American missionaries, lay, religious and priests. I wish to make an appeal to young Catholics to consider the missionary vocation. I know that the ``spirit of Denver'' is alive in many young hearts. Today, though, some Catholics are tempted to discouragement or disillusionment, like the prophet Habakkuk in the first reading. They are tempted to cry out to the Lord in a different way: why does God not intervene when violence threatens his people; why does God let us see ruin and misery; why does God permit evil? Like the prophet Habakkuk, and like the thirsty Israelites in the desert at Meribah and Massah, our trust can falter; we can lose patience with God. In the drama of history, we can find our dependence upon God burdensome rather than liberating. We too can ``harden our hearts.'' And yet the prophet gives us an answer to our impatience: ``If God delays, wait for him; he will surely come, he will not be late.'' A Polish proverb expresses the same conviction in another way: ``God takes his time, but he is just.'' . . . (Remarks in another language, then English translation): Our waiting for God is never in vain. Every moment is our opportunity to model ourselves on Jesus Christ--to allow the power of the Gospel to transform our personal lives and our service to others, according to the spirit of the Beatitudes. ``Bear your share of the hardship which the gospel entails,'' writes Paul to Timothy in today's second reading. This is no idle exhortation to endurance. No, it is an invitation to enter more deeply into the Christian vocation which belongs to us all by Baptism. There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us. And on the far side of every cross we find the newness of life in the Holy Spirit, that new life which will reach its fulfillment in the resurrection. This is our faith. This is our witness before the world. [[Page S 14949]] Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: ``The spirit God has given us is no cowardly spirit. . . . Therefore, never be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord.'' Thus wrote St. Paul to Timothy, almost 2,000 years ago; thus speaks the church to American Catholics today. Christian witness takes different forms at different moments in the life of a nation. Sometimes, witnessing to Christ will mean drawing out of a culture the full meaning of its noblest intentions, a fullness that is revealed in Christ. At other times, witnessing to Christ means challenging that culture, especially when the truth about the human person is under assault. America has always wanted to be a land of the free. Today, the challenge facing America is to find freedom's fulfillment in the truth: the truth that is intrinsic to human life created in God's image and likeness, the truth that is written on the human heart, the truth that can be known by reason and can therefore form the basis of a profound and universal dialogue among people about the direction they must give to their lives and their activities. One hundred thirty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln asked whether a nation ``conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal'' could ``long endure.'' President Lincoln's question is no less a question for the present generation of Americans. Democracy cannot be sustained without a shared commitment to certain moral truths about the human person and human community. The basic question before a democratic society is: ``How ought we live together?'' In seeking an answer to this question, can society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can the Biblical wisdom which played such a formative part in the very founding of your country be excluded from that debate? Would not doing so means that tens of millions of Americans could no longer offer the contributions of their deepest convictions to the formation of public policy? Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. How appropriate is St. Paul's charge to Timothy! ``Guard the rich deposit of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.'' That charge speaks to parents and teachers; it speaks in a special and urgent way to you, my brother bishops, successors of the apostles. Christ asks us to guard the truth because, as he promised us: ``You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.'' Depositum custodi! We must guard the truth that is the condition of authentic freedom, the truth that allows freedom to be fulfilled in goodness. We must guard the deposit of divine truth handed down to us in the church, especially in view of the challenges posed by a materialistic culture and by a permissive mentality that reduces freedom to license. But we bishops must do more than guard this truth. We must proclaim it, in season and out of season; we must celebrate it with God's people, in the sacraments; we must live it in charity and service; we must bear public witness to the truth that is Jesus Christ. Dear brothers and sisters: Catholics of America! Always be guided by the truth--by the truth about God who created and redeemed us, and by the truth about the human person, made in the image and likeness of God and destined for a glorious fulfillment in the Kingdom to come. Always be convincing witnesses to the truth. ``Stir into a flame the gift of God'' that has been bestowed upon you in baptism. Light your nation--light the world--with the power of that flame! Amen.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join Senators Nunn and Hutchison and others in this important discussion on the future of NATO and NATO's role in maintaining U.S. national security in the next century. My colleague from Georgia has been a powerful driving force in the debate on the relevance of NATO. He takes second place to no one in his intellectual honesty and in his ability to examine this issue with depth and intelligence. I appreciate his seeking this time to engage the Senate in thoughtful discussion of this important issue and I thank him for asking me to take part. Like the Senator from Georgia and many others in this Chamber, I am deeply concerned about the role the United States will play in international affairs in the years ahead of us. Our involvement with NATO--more precisely, our leadership of NATO--has been a critical part of American involvement in global affairs since our victory in the cold war. There is an important role for NATO to continue to play for the stability and security of Europe and the United States and we must continue to be an active leader in this highly successful alliance of sovereign, democratic states. As all of us know too well, during this century the United States fought two world wars in Europe. We recognized that a free and stable Europe is vital to America's own national security. Our victory in those wars was attributable to the courage and ability of our Armed Forces, the support of the American people, and the willingness of the United States to form alliances with other nations when it was mutually beneficial. At the end of the Second World War, we developed a strong alliance of free nations to ensure that America and Western Europe would remain safe and free. That alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-- NATO--successfully deterred Soviet Communist expansionism which threatened the security of the United States and our European allies for four decades. NATO has been the most successful defensive alliance the world has ever seen. By maintaining the military and economic strength, and political will of its members, NATO deterred war and, in fact, never had to fire a shot against any of the states it had been formed to defend against. Now the cold war is history. People in most of central and Eastern Europe have made bold and significant steps toward democracy. They have elected governments which share our beliefs in freedom, human rights, and the power of free markets. There are some in America and abroad who argue that NATO is no longer necessary because the cold war has been won. But in my view those who advocate the abandonment of NATO are wrong. NATO is not an anachronism. The fundamental purpose of NATO--uniting like-minded, free, democratic nations in common self-defense to deter attacks and prevent war-- remains as valid and worthy a purpose today as it was in 1949. It is important to do all that is necessary to ensure that NATO can continue to fulfill this role. That does not mean, however, that the NATO of 2001 should be or even can be identical to the NATO of 1949 or 1995. NATO must adapt to new political geography and continue to contribute to the development of an integrated, free Europe. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO and defense thinkers have conducted a number of studies on the future of NATO. In 1994 the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS] published a report by its Senior NATO Policy Group, upon which I was privileged to serve along with Senators Nunn, Cohen, and McCain. Earlier this year, the Council on Foreign Relations published the report of an independent task force chaired by former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown entitled ``Should NATO Expand?'' This year Secretary of Defense Perry provided his views on NATO expansion in a March 10 report to Congress. Each of these studies has moved forward the debate on NATO enlargement and new roles for NATO. Now the alliance itself has issued a major report on the question in its September 1995 ``Study on NATO Enlargement.'' This most recent study by the 16 member states of NATO sets out the purposes and principles of enlargement and establishes a process under which NATO will consider admitting new members on a case-by-case basis. It does not establish a specific timetable for the admission of new members, prioritize candidates for membership, or develop precise criteria which must be met in order to gain membership. It does, however, convey a number of important messages. First, new members of NATO will need to accede to the Washington Treaty. No state may enjoy the rights and benefits of NATO membership without also assuming the obligations of membership. Second, negotiations on admission of new members will consider both the candidate state's potential contributions to collective defense as well as broader political and security criteria. Third, expansion of NATO, if it occurs, is intended to strengthen relations with Russia through increased European stability and security. While Russian sensitivities and security requirements must and will be considered, no country outside the alliance will have a veto over NATO enlargement. Needless to say, a document such as this study which reflects consensus of 16 nations is unlikely to fully satisfy everyone. Because I have spoken often on the need for NATO to expand its membership sooner rather than later, I would have preferred to see in this study a statement of clear criteria for inviting new members to join the alliance. Unfortunately, in my view, many of these central issues have been left to the negotiations between NATO and each prospective new member. I have read with great interest and attention the analysis of my friend from Georgia, Senator Nunn, on the question of NATO expansion. The questions he poses are good ones which need to be considered as we and NATO decide how to proceed. Senator Nunn continues to make invaluable contributions to the debate on these critical issues which affect our national security and I hope that he will continue to speak out and to help focus our attention on them. Last week, the Senator from Texas [Mrs. Hutchison] and I had the opportunity to meet with NATO Secretary General Willy Claes and the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter. In the course of a wide-ranging discussion, we spoke of the importance of American leadership in NATO and the question of NATO enlargement. In that regard, I would like to make a few observations. First, NATO always has been and must continue to be an alliance which is both military and political. It will not just be the number of troops which NATO nations can mass which will keep Europe and the United States secure in the decades ahead as it was not just numbers which kept Europe secure during the cold war. Rather, it is the degree of political solidarity and agreement on fundamental principles of democracy, human rights, and the necessity for free markets which will keep [[Page S 14850]] the alliance viable and provide security for its members. Candidates for membership must demonstrate the same commitment to these democratic principles as current members. There can be no exceptions granted with regard to belief in and enforcement of human rights, the exercise of freedoms by citizens, the transparency of defense budgets, real civilian control of the military and intelligence arms of the government, and adherence to the principles of peaceful resolution of disputes within and beyond a state's borders. Second, membership in the alliance carries with it obligations and benefits. No candidate can be accepted just because it wants the fruits of membership; each state must be able to contribute something to the alliance. This will be a difficult issue to resolve for the new democracies are constrained by their defense budgets and economic difficulties. NATO must be realistic, but at the same time creative, in determining what capabilities NATO requires and how new members can contribute to them. Third, membership in NATO is not a zero-sum game. The new democracies of central and Eastern Europe are not competing with each for some predefined number of spaces being allocated for expansion. No one knows today whether the right number for the composition of NATO is 16, as it is today, or 18 or 20 or more. Candidates must be evaluated on the basis of the political and military norms which members must demonstrate on an absolute--not comparative--basis. It should not matter if one candidate country is less able to contribute than another candidate country. If the required standards are met, both should be admitted. Fourth, participation in the Partnership for Peace is an important transitional step for candidate countries though it need not be a mandatory one if a candidate can demonstrate it meets the requirements of membership without it. I personally find it hard to believe that a country which chooses not to take part in the Partnership for Peace would or should be an early candidate for membership. If new members are to be full participants in all aspects of the alliance upon ratification of their membership, they should want to start exercising with NATO, determining what they need to achieve full integration, and exposing their own leaders--both military and civilian--to NATO procedures and thinking. Fifth, contrary to the assertions of nationalist forces within Russia, NATO expansion is not and should not be construed as a threat to Russia. I fully agree with the conclusions of the recent NATO study that no state outside of NATO should have a veto over the accession of new members to the alliance. These are decisions which the independent members of the alliance themselves must make. Nor do I believe that decisions on membership should be based solely on threat considerations. NATO should expand to meet the requirements for security and stability in Europe well into the next century. Russian conduct today cannot be used as a criterion by itself to determine whether there is a need to expand the alliance's membership. To do so, in fact gives Russia a de facto veto over what the alliance does in the near-term and long-term. We must all do everything we can to assure the leaders and people of Russia that NATO expansion is not just a shifting of cold war confrontation lines to the east. At the same time we need to make decisions which are right for our security and that of our European allies today and into the next century. Finally, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are a founding member of NATO not just because we wanted to help our friends in Western Europe, but because it was in our national interest. I believe that this is as true today as it was in 1949. NATO expansion is something we should do because it is in our interest and the interest of security and stability in Europe. It is not a gift which we offer up to former Communist States or a reward for beginning the movement to full democracy. There is no doubt in my mind that it is in our interest to find ways to encourage and support the transitions to democracy which are taking place today in Europe. Expanding NATO membership is one way to do this. It should not, however, be done in isolation. Nor should it be done solely because of what is or is not going on within Russia. We have no desire to confront Russia along a new wall of tension and confrontation. All of us--Americans, Russians, current members of NATO, and prospective members--must continue to work together to find ways to cooperate and make the world a safer and more prosperous place for us all. I hope that this discussion, which Senators Nunn and Hutchison have organized, will help set a positive tone for the policy debates which lie ahead on this important issue. Mr. JOHNSTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, nearly 2 years ago, it was my privilege to meet with Mr. Hugo Princz in my office. He told me how he and his family had been victimized by Nazi brutality and disregard for international laws and civilized norms; how his family's American passports were ignored in 1942 by German officials and they were sent to death camps; how his entire family was exterminated simply because they were Jewish as were so many other Jews during those dark days of the Holocaust; and how fate intervened in the closing days of World War II and American soldiers intercepted and liberated the prison train which was taking him to his death. I was saddened by the horrors he had suffered and endured and by the losses he had sustained. But just as powerful as the sorrow I felt for him was the outrage I felt at the brutality he was still enduring from the legalistic folly being perpetuated by the German Government which refused to resolve his claims for fair reparations. Since Mr. Princz was rescued by American forces [[Page S 14803]] and was not processed through a center for displaced persons, the German government argued, he was not a stateless person eligible for the reparations which Germany agreed to pay to Holocaust survivors in the 1960's. Despite repeated attempts to get the German Government to recognize the validity of his claim, Hugo Princz was denied the remedy he was entitled to by common decency and conscience if not by the letter of German law. But Hugo Princz did not survive the horrors of Maidanek, Auschwitz, and Dachau by being a quitter. He persisted in his claims against Germany, eventually suing in Federal district court in 1992. Still the years passed with no relief. But Hugo Princz never gave up hope. His goal was not monetary compensation; rather, it was the justice which he and his family had been denied since the early days of 1942. Finally, on September 18, 1995, Hugo Princz was offered and accepted a settlement by the Federal Republic of Germany. Fifty years after the end of World War II, 50 years after his family was torn apart with all but Hugo going to their deaths, finally, after 50 more years of being denied justice, this courageous American who has demonstrated the patience of Job received what should have been given so long ago. The settlement which Hugo has offered is not adequate compensation for what he has endured; it is a victory of the spirit not the accountant's ledger. It was too long in coming and too difficult to achieve. But it is a victory for Hugo Princz; for his courage, his persistence, his faith, and his memories. Each of us who have been touched by Hugo Princz have been enriched by the contact. I hope that these recent events will bring to him at long last the peace which he has been denied all these years. I wish Hugo, his wife, Delores, and his children, Giselle, Howard, and Cheryl, all the peace and joy they so richly deserve and have waited so long to enjoy.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment. I am privileged to be a cosponsor of it because I think it ought to be the beginning of bipartisan cooperation on this question of authorizing American troops to be part of a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. The fact is that this amendment is consistent with what President Clinton has said. He has clearly said he expects and would welcome congressional action prior to any dispatch of American troops to Bosnia to enforce a genuine and just peace agreement. Mr. President, I want to make very clear that I view the exercise of American leadership to bring about the NATO strikes which have brought Bosnia now to the verge of peace as an exercise of leadership which has revived NATO's credibility. There is no way, if there is a peace agreement, that we can maintain our credibility and NATO's if we do not contribute American troops to that peacekeeping force.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this week President Clinton welcomed President Ion Iliescu of Romania at the White House. On this occasion, I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues President Iliescu's initiative to bring about an historic reconciliation between Romania and Hungary. I know from my visit to Romania, where I was an official observer of the 1992 elections, the Romanian and Hungarian peoples both have rich cultural traditions. As in many parts of Europe and elsewhere, ethnic and cultural traditions in these nations are not bound by national borders. Certain politicians in these nations have sought to repress ethnic and cultural minorities and increase long-standing tensions. Ethnic Hungarians in Romanian Transylvania in particular have been denied full human and civil rights. The tragic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia are a constant reminder of the risks of extreme nationalism and ethnic and cultural divisions. Mr. President, on August 30, President Iliescu called for an historic reconciliation between Hungary and Romania. In a statesmanlike speech, President Iliescu committed himself and his country to seeking a peaceful solution to the problems which have long damaged normal relations between Romania and Hungary. He cited as his model the Franco-German reconciliation that occurred when Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer committed their governments and their nations to forgive the past and jointly move forward to help create a more prosperous and more peaceful Europe. It is an important model to emulate. President Iliescu's overture is welcome news for Romanians and Hungarians, Europeans and Americans. For the ethnic Hungarians of Transylvania and other minority groups in Romania and Hungary, there is new hope that human rights and freedom of expression will be respected. For all the people of Hungary and Romania, there is new hope for freedom and democracy, peaceful cooperation, economic growth and integration with the West and its economic and political institutions. For the people of America and Europe, there is new hope for strengthened economic and political ties which will integrate Hungary and Romania into economic and political institutions on the basis of shared values. Romania and Hungary must now take real steps to ensure that these hopes are realized. Both governments must work to reach and implement broad and concrete agreements which will guarantee respect for human rights, confirm national borders, and expand opportunities for free and fair trade. Fortunately, this process is underway. The United States should support reconciliation between Hungary and Romania, and their integration into Western institutions. This reconciliation would mean a more stable world with more economic opportunities for Americans. Mr. President, I hope that President Iliescu's visit to Washington has strengthened the friendship between our two countries on the basis of a shared interest in freedom and democracy.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I would like to express my concern about the programs that are suffering as a result of the appropriations in this bill. The programs that I am referring to are critical to the future of the U.S. economy. Economic security, competitiveness, jobs. That is what is at risk. Technology development is slated to be the victim of our budget axe. Investments in technology are investments in our future and should not be terminated. In our enthusiasm to make cuts to balance the budget we are losing sight of the reason we want to balance the budget in the first place--to make our economy stronger. The irony is that by cutting technology programs we are cutting programs that are already making our economy stronger. We will be defeating our own purpose. I am particularly concerned about the integration of the technology and trade functions in the Department of Commerce. Within the Department of Commerce there are programs that work with the private sector to foster new ideas that may underpin the next generation of products. This is one of the few places where information channels are developed that make sure that the ideas generated in our world class research institutions find their way into the marketplace. Previous Administrations had the foresight to realize that we are entering a new era, an era where economic battles are as fiercely fought as any previous military actions. New kinds of technology programs were begun with bipartisan support to make sure that the United States was well armed for these economic battles. I do not want to see us lose our technology edge in the marketplace, because this edge translates directly into jobs for our work force, new markets for American business, improvements in our balance of trade, and from this economic success, desperately needed revenues for our treasury. The home of technology programs is with our trade programs where they will have the most impact and do the most good for our economy. The Technology Administration is a critical component of the Department of Commerce and we need to make sure that its key functions are maintained. Making changes in technology and trade functions at this juncture in time must be done extremely carefully. New markets are emerging in developing countries. Conservative estimates suggest that 60 percent of the growth in world trade will be with these developing countries over the next two decades. The United States has a large share of imports in big emerging markets currently, in significant part because of the efforts of the Department [[Page S 14535]] of Commerce. While we are making changes in the Department of Commerce, our foreign competitors are increasing their investments in their economies. Competing advanced economies are just waiting for us to make a move that will weaken our economic capacity. We cannot afford to dismantle successful programs that are making and keeping the United State competitive. We should be sure that changes we make will be improving the Government's efficiency and improving the taxpayer's return on investment. The kind of technology programs that I am advocating are not corporate welfare or techno pork. I find these terms not only inaccurate and derived from ignorance, but offensive. American industry is not looking for a handout. Quite the contrary. These programs are providing incentives to elicit support from the private sector for programs that are the responsibility of the Government. Times are tough and the Government needs to cut back, so we are looking for the handout from private industry, not the other way around. Let me explain. Everyone agrees that when markets fail, it is legitimate to have the Government step in. For example, so-called basic research, the Government funds, because no one industry can capture the benefits of the investment. Basic research is described as research that is so far reaching that it will impact a wide array of applications in a variety of different industries on a timeframe that could be quite long. No one expects a single company to make an investment, when it can not capture a sufficient return on its investment, or when the investment would be too risky or too long term. That would be bad business. I agree with this definition of basic research and I agree with these criteria for the appropriate role for government investments. These criteria apply equally to investment in technology research, as long as the technology research is precompetitive, high risk, and long term. So-called basic research has also been defined as research that does not have any clear application. This definition is puzzling. One could legitimately ask, why perform research that deliberately has no application? In reality, research is rather fickle and difficult to predict. Sometimes one can plot a nice logical progression from basic research, to applied research, to product development, but this is usually not the case. Often what appears to be basic research turns out to be product development, or applied research results in a fundamental breakthrough with farreaching results, or as most commonly happens, at the end of an experiment, the research scientist must go back to the drawing board and try one more experiment before she can claim success. Thus, the research scenario is complicated and trying to make clear distinctions is artificial at best. Our goal should be, not to try and categorize research, but to make investments that are appropriate, and that strengthen our economy. I believe that there is an important and legitimate role for government to play in technology research. The National Association of Manufacturers has spoken out strongly in favor of the kind of technology programs that are run by the Department of Commerce. I would like to read some quotes from their statement about Federal technology programs: The NAM is concerned that the magnitude and distribution of the R&D spending cuts proposed thus far would erode US technological leadership. A successful national R&D policy requires a diverse portfolio of programs that includes long- and short-term science and technology programs, as well as the necessary infrastructure to support them. The character of research activities has changed substantially in the past decade, making hard and fast distinctions between basic and applied research or between research and development increasingly artificial. R&D agendas today are driven by time horizons not definitions. In short, rigid delineations between basic and applied research are not the basis on which private sector R&D strategies are executed, nor should they be the basis for federal R&D policy decisions. The NAM believes the disproportionate large cuts proposed in newer R&D programs are a mistake. R&D programs of more recent vintage enjoy considerable industry support for one simple fact: They are more relevant to today's technology challenges. For example, ``bridge'' programs that focus on the problem of technology assimilation often yield greater payoff to a wider public than programs aimed at technology creation. Newer programs address current R&D challenges far more effectively than older programs and should not fall victim to the ``last hired, first fired'' prioritization. In particular, partnership and bridge programs should not only not be singled out for elimination, but should receive a relatively greater share of what federal R&D spending remains. These programs currently account for approximately 5 percent of federal R&D spending. The NAM suggests that 15 percent may be a more appropriate level. Given the critical importance of R&D, far too much is being cut on the basis of far too little understanding of the implications. The world has changed considerably in the past several years, and R&D is no different. Crafting a federal R&D policy must take stock of these changes; to date this has not happened. As the major funder and performer of the R&D in the US, industry believes its voice should be heard in setting the national R&D agenda. The Congress and the Administration should draw on industry's experience and expertise in determining policy choices. For example, as a guide to prioritizing federal R&D programs, the NAM would favor those programs that embody the following attributes: industry led; cost-shared; relevant to today's R&D challenges; partnership/ consortia; deployment-oriented; and dual use. We believe these criteria provide the basis for creation of a template for prioritizing federal R&D spending. In sum, the NAM remains firmly committed to a balanced federal budget. But we also firmly believe that the action taken thus far in downsizing and altering the direction of US R&D spending is tantamount to fighting hunger by eating the seed corn. We urge the Congress to consider carefully the impact of R&D on US economic vitality and to move forward in crafting an R&D agenda that will sustain US technological leadership far into the future. I would like to describe two programs in which I have taken a particular interest, the Advanced Technology Program [ATP] and the Manufacturing Extension Program [MEP].

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of Senator Baucus' amendment because it assures that no provision in the House or the Senate appropriations bills governing EPA's budget will harm public health or the environment. The No. 1 responsibility we have, and what people demand from us, is to protect the public we serve from harm. This means guarding our national security with a strong defense, and keeping our streets safe from crime. But that also means protecting people from breathing polluted air, from drinking poisonous water, and from eating contaminated food--in other words, protecting people from harms from which they cannot protect themselves. We often fail to think of these problems in terms of being a threat to our safety and well-being, primarily because the Federal Government has done such a good job in guaranteeing that we have clean air and clean water and edible food. One of the great ironies here is that some of the riders in the appropriations bills this Congress may succeed in attempts to eviscerate our key environmental laws precisely because we have succeeded in diminishing environmental dangers from every day life. Make no mistake, however, the riders particularly in the House bill will, if they find their way into law, quickly remind people of the very real dangers we have been fighting against for the last generation. The riders would severely limit the agency's ability to ensure that our water is safe, our food is safe, and our air is clean. What makes these riders particularly outrageous is that they are being done without any opportunity for the public to comment on what would be a revolutionary shift in our national policies. This is essentially the equivalent of tacking on a provision legalizing narcotics in America to the FBI's appropriation. The riders relating to the Clean Water Act would quite simply end enforcement and implementation of the Clean Water Act. The riders would mean widespread degradation of the water quality in Long Island Sound. It would threaten the sound's beaches and its enormous commercial shellfish industry, which has the top oyster harvest in the Nation. In fact, Long Island Sound supports $5 billion a year in water-quality dependent uses. These economic benefits are due in large part to the improvement in water quality brought about by the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act riders would prevent enforcement of controls for combined sewer overflows and practices to reduce stormwater pollution. These programs were designed to keep raw sewage off beaches and out of waterways and reduce dirty runoff from streets and farms. They are critical to the cleanup and long-term health of Long Island Sound. Last year alone Connecticut had 162 beach closings from too high a count of disease-causing bacteria. These bacteria come from raw untreated sewage that still flows from sewerage treatment systems in Connecticut and New York that are old and being stressed from a growing population in coastal areas. Under the House bill, raw sewage would continue to spill into waters from outdated or inadequate sewage treatment and collection systems. Stormwater controls would be eliminated from many urban areas. The result would be widespread degradation of water quality, which would threaten the State's commercial fishing and shellfishing industry. As [[Page S 14343]] the Connecticut Commissioner of Environmental Protection, Sidney Holbrook, has written about the House bill: ``If enacted in its current form, the bill would adversely impact important water quality and public health initiatives.'' EPA does much more than enforce the law. EPA provides guidance and funding so that States and localities can upgrade and repair their aging sewerage systems. Language in the House bill would completely stop EPA from issuing stormwater permits, providing technical assistance and outreach, and enforcing against the most serious overflow problems. Let me briefly discuss my concerns with some of the other riders. One rider would prevent the EPA from enforcing its rule limiting emissions of hazardous air pollutants from refineries. This rule, which has just gone final, would reduce toxic emissions from refinery facilities by almost 60 percent--approximately 53,400 tons per year of toxic emissions and 277,000 tons per year of emissions of volatile organic compounds, the major contributor to smog. The health impacts of hazardous air pollutants include potential respiratory, reproductive, and neurotoxic effects. The rule simply requires that petroleum refineries seal their storage tanks, control process vents, and detect and seal equipment leaks. About 50 percent of the 165 refining facilities in this country are already meeting or almost meeting the rule's requirements. This rule levels the playing field and provides minimum protections to all communities living in proximity to a petroleum refinery. EPA has made substantial changes from its proposed rule based on the comments of industry, resulting in much greater flexibility. Even the American Petroleum Industry by a vote of l7 to 3 supports the rule. That this rule cannot be enforced by EPA is simply a delay tactic by a small group of refineries that do not want to comply with standard industry practices. Another rider on the House side would limit EPA's ability to gather data under the toxic release inventory that would give the public a better understanding of toxic chemicals released into their environment and where they work. The Toxic Release Program is a non-regulatory, noncommand, and control program. It is essentially a market-based program--providing information to the public so that it can make informed choices and enter constructive dialog with facilities in their communities. I have just mentioned a few riders in my comments--there are more than 25 others that I didn't mention but all affect EPA's duties. The Baucus amendment will assure that none of the appropriations riders will endanger current health and environmental protections that we rely upon and expect and which improve our quality of life. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, over the last few months, there have been a number of speeches in this Chamber and even more outside of it criticizing pointless partisanship. Although matters of philosophy and implementation do frequently divide Senators on this side of the aisle from those on the other side, the country has a right to expect that we will seize every chance to work together. I would have thought that national service provided a perfect opportunity for that common ground. Republicans and Democrats alike have called for greater personal responsibility, for increased involvement of citizens in our communities, for people pitching in to do what needs to be done to make America as smart and safe and strong as we have dreamed it could be. These are the very same goals of AmeriCorps, the new domestic Peace Corps established by Congress only 2 years ago. Just this past week, the first 20,000 AmeriCorps members completed their service in my State of Connecticut and all across the country. I know how much they have achieved in Connecticut. Forty percent of the 300 students tutored by the University of Bridgeport AmeriCorps members have increased their levels of achievement in one or more areas. AmeriCorps members in the Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership [LEAP] program trained 600 children to volunteer at the Special Olympics when they were held in New Haven. Community Action for Greater Middlesex County was able to bring over 60 volunteers to Christmas in April, thanks to the presence of AmeriCorps members. They refurbished 15 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms at the Eddy Shelter and rehabilitated the home of 90-year-old Alice Taylor, who, in her own lifetime has taken care of over 1,000 foster children, as well as raised her own 8 children. AmeriCorps offers an opportunity for young people and Americans of all ages. It makes the dream of a college education a reality for families who work hard and play by the rules--while meeting compelling human needs in our communities in a cost effective manner. Independent analyses show just how cost-effective this initiative has been in its first year. The GAO said that the Corporation for National Service's resources total about $17,600 per member, which is not only in line with the Corporation's estimate of $18,800 per member but in line with what Congress authorized. Mr. President, the only formal cost-benefit analysis of AmeriCorps, done by four conservative economists, estimated a return of $1.60 to $2.60 in direct benefits for every dollar AmeriCorps invests. We need to build on this success, not walk away from it. The private sector poured $41 million in resources into local AmeriCorps programs this last year, a tremendous feat when you consider that Congress had called for $32 million in matching funds from all sources. We've got an impressive public/private partnership going here and we really need to nurture it. We won't find common ground or reach higher ground if we turn national service into a partisan political football. We owe those 20,000 AmeriCorps members--and all Americans--better than that.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I withhold my notation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am, again, glad to join my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, in commenting on the state of television today. I do not know that the Conrad-Lieberman review of the fall television season will rival Siskel and Ebert's review of movies. But I would say Senator Conrad and I are quite clearly saying we give this fall TV season two thumbs down. That is, really, what I want to talk about today. Three months ago this body voted overwhelmingly, on a bipartisan basis, in support of V-chip--or C-chip, C for choice--legislation that Senator Conrad and I initiated. With that vote we said, in effect, that too much of television in America today has become so wild, so vulgar, so morally repugnant that it has actually become a threat to our children, a threat from which they need protection. As Senator Conrad indicated, there is new evidence out today on the extent of violence in television in the form of a study released by the Center for Communication Policy at UCLA which, while it does note some improvement, shows by its content that violence remains a serious problem in TV programming. But the American people do not need a study to tell them what they already know about the state of television today. Not only does violence remain a problem, but vulgarity is increasing as a problem. I hear complaints whenever I go home and talk about this subject. Poll after poll depicts a citizenry fed up with the plummeting standards of the TV industry and the constant barrage of foul programming that is being thrown at our children. Mr. President, our purpose--Senator Conrad's and mine--in raising this issue today is to call our colleagues' attention to the industry's curious reaction to the public's anger about the state of television programming. For the fact is that the broadcast networks this week are embarking on a new fall season that is far more crude, more rude, and more offensive than anything we have seen before. That is the conclusion reached by the television critic at Connecticut's largest newspaper, the Hartford Courant, James Endrst, who characterized a collection of new series this fall as the product of a ``slow but steady slide into the gutter involving the Nation's most pervasive and persuasive medium.'' He went on to say that ``viewers may be struck not so much by the shows, but by the scenes--TV moments signaling an aggregate acceptance of rude language, foul imagery and gross behavior in the entertainment mainstream.'' It reminds me of Senator Moynihan's searing and profound comment that we are defining deviancy down by lowering the standards of what we accept on television, particularly in what used to be family programming hours. We are lowering the standards of what is acceptable in our society, and we are sending a message to our children. The Cincinnati Enquirer's editorial page bluntly talked about the ``reeking crud of puerile trashcoms'' that are so common this fall season. And Tom Shales, respected critic from the Washington Post, used the words ``depraved'' and ``soul-killing'' after viewing some of the same shows. Mr. President, I would encourage my colleagues to watch some of these new shows, new shows that are premiering this week. Those of you who once may have watched ``Car 54, Where Are You?'' will probably end up asking ``Common Decency, Where Are You?'' on television today. Mr. President, I am going to reference and read from a few lines from these shows, and perhaps I should issue a warning to any children that may be watching on C-SPAN or their parents to remove them from the sets. So I am going to quote from shows that are shown in the family hour on television today. It makes me feel like my childhood was a long time ago, and I am sure parents are yearning again for the time when they could turn on the television and not worry about being embarrassed to sit there with their children and hear what they hear--being worried about letting their children watch without them. So let me cite from some of the shows that are new to the television this year. ABC's ``Wilde Again'' in which the lead character advises her stepdaughter to ``call me what you called me when we first met, `Daddy's little whore'.'' Or, you can watch another ABC offering, a nighttime soap called ``The Monroes,'' which in its premier last week showcased a woman making what we once referred to as an obscene gesture with her middle finger. That may be the most fitting symbol to characterize what too much of television is saying to the American public today, and also to our concerns about the degradation of our culture. One of the most controversial new shows is a sitcom on CBS called ``Bless This House.'' And it is controversial for good reason. On its premier last Monday night, the mother on the show tells her daughter that she would not need her own bathroom if ``you didn't spend all morning staring at your little hooters.'' What makes the crassness of ``Bless This House'' profoundly disturbing is that the network has made a decision to air the show at 8 p.m. during what we once thought of as the traditional family viewing hour. Some of this stuff is obviously appropriate for adult viewing. But to put it on at 8 p.m. when families have been watching television is an insult to those families. The networks' commitment to that concept of the family television viewing hour has obviously eroded. But the fall season has slipped even further, as is evident from the number of what I would call sophomoric sitcoms that are being aired between 8 and 9 p.m. For instance, joining ``Bless This House'' is another CBS series, ``Can't Hurry Love,'' which has featured in its premier episode some truly outrageous language from the lead characters. Mr. President, the abandonment of the family viewing hour is evident also in the networks' decision to shift the number of established sitcoms with adult themes--such as ``Cybill'' on CBS and ``Friends'' on ABC--to this earlier time period. Those two shows which I have watched can be very engaging, very witty, and very entertaining. But they are often clearly not appropriate for children, particularly younger children. That is exactly the point which Senator Conrad and I are trying to make. I must say just as jarring as the language on new shows are some of the comments from network officials to justify their programming decisions. One high-ranking official at ABC said, ``The society to some extent, has become crasser, and we move with that.'' That is not what I understood the purpose of entertainment to be, particularly not in the family viewing hours. An executive from NBC explained that ``life includes sexual innuendoes.'' And another NBC official also went so far as to say, ``It's not the role of network television to program for the children of America.'' But the children of America are watching those programs. That official added that most small children ``are watching Nick at Nite.'' Most of them do not watch network television in prime time. If many young children are indeed watching Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel, it's because their parents are deeply troubled by the content of the major network's programming, and are searching for refuge from the tawdriness that characterizes too much of television today. But the reality is that many children are watching broadcast television and these tasteless trashcoms, and the legion of perverse and near-pornographic talk shows that air each afternoon. No matter how hard parents work to monitor their children's viewing, habits, and no matter how many technological gadgets they have at their disposal, many children will continue to watch these channels, and their behavior will continue to be influenced by what they see on TV. Mr. President, I realize that the TV industry is not a monolith. There are many responsible leaders in that community, just as there are some outstanding. thought-provoking series on the major networks. Some of them, such as the hit ABC comedy ``Home Improvement,'' showed that you can be successful and funny, without being vulgar. PBS obviously continues to offer both adults and children a number of engaging, challenging, thought-provoking, and entertaining series. And even among the new network offerings NBC is earning favorable reviews for a family-oriented program called ``Minor Adjustments,'' a show about a child psychologist which will appear on Sunday nights. But there is a clear direction that the networks are moving in. It is not just Senator Conrad and I who see it. It is all or most of the TV critics who have reviewed this current fall season. We have reason to be deeply troubled about it. I can tell you that I am troubled about it not just in my capacity as an elected representative, but as a father of four kids, one of whom is 7 years old. Television executives need to recognize that they are part of a larger civil society to which they, like we, have obligations, and that the first amendment is not a constitutional hall pass that excuses them from their responsibilities to that civil society. Mr. President, in the end, the new fall season I hope will clear up any doubts that our colleagues have about the need for the leadership, or the V-chip, and the need to help parents protect their kids as best they can from the messages that television is sending them that are so often inconsistent with what the parents are trying to send and teach their own children. When the telecommunications bill comes out of conference, I hope my colleagues will join us in calling on the networks to acknowledge their responsibility to society and the impact that they have on our society and to remember this important point. They are obviously private businesses, but they are using the public airwaves, and they should not use those airwaves to hurt the public. The networks need to be reminded that they would not exist if the public and we, their representatives, did not grant them access to those airwaves. No one here wants to talk about censorship. No one here wants to talk about constraining the freedom of the networks to program. But the reality is that the networks are moving so far away from reflecting the values commonly shared by most people in this country, let alone the interests of most people in this country, that they are inviting a reaction unless they discipline themselves. Mr. President, one of television's finest moments was the Edward R. Murrow documentary ``Harvest of Shame,'' which was broadcast four decades ago. I am afraid that the 1995 fall season might also be titled the ``Harvest of Shame.'' I hope its excesses will inspire a reaction from the American people, a reaction from us, their representatives, here in Congress, and ultimately a reaction from those who can do most to diminish this problem, and that is those who own, operate and program our television networks today. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I'm delighted to join in the introduction of this important legislation, the Enhanced Enterprise Zone Act of 1995. Last week, this body unanimously approved an amendment calling on Congress to enact legislation to supercharge the enterprise communities and empowerment zones we created in 1993. While the 1993 legislation creating these entities was not perfect and the legislation did not go far enough, particularly for the enterprise communities, it represented a fundamental change in urban policy. I believe that legislation was a clear recognition of the fact that government does not have all the answers to the ills of poverty in this country and that American business can and must play a role in revitalizing poor neighborhoods. The 1993 legislation was a good start but it did not go far enough. The bill we are introducing today takes us further down the road of attacking the problems that plague our cities and economically distressed rural areas. I should note that I do have concerns with some of the provisions of the regulatory flexibility title of this bill. For example, I think we must work on making changes to provide greater assurance that any modifications or waivers of rules would not in any way compromise the benefits that are achieved through existing environmental protection and public health laws and regulations. I hope that these provisions can be worked on as this bill progresses through the legislative process. Given that reservation, I believe this is an important bill that will do much to provide an economic boost to the areas of this country that most desperately need that help. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I'm delighted to join in the introduction of this important legislation, the Enhanced Enterprise Zone Act of 1995. Last week, this body unanimously approved an amendment calling on Congress to enact legislation to supercharge the enterprise communities and empowerment zones we created in 1993. While the 1993 legislation creating these entities was not perfect and the legislation did not go far enough, particularly for the enterprise communities, it represented a fundamental change in urban policy. I believe that legislation was a clear recognition of the fact that government does not have all the answers to the ills of poverty in this country and that American business can and must play a role in revitalizing poor neighborhoods. The 1993 legislation was a good start but it did not go far enough. The bill we are introducing today takes us further down the road of attacking the problems that plague our cities and economically distressed rural areas. I should note that I do have concerns with some of the provisions of the regulatory flexibility title of this bill. For example, I think we must work on making changes to provide greater assurance that any modifications or waivers of rules would not in any way compromise the benefits that are achieved through existing environmental protection and public health laws and regulations. I hope that these provisions can be worked on as this bill progresses through the legislative process. Given that reservation, I believe this is an important bill that will do much to provide an economic boost to the areas of this country that most desperately need that help. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, heeding the admonition, growing up in Connecticut State politics really always taught me when you got the votes call the roll. I will be very brief and just say this: We have all talked about the problem of teenage pregnancy, of babies born out of wedlock and the extent to which that expands the welfare rolls; of the extent to which children born to poor, unwed mothers are born to a life that has very little hope in it; of the extent to which babies born to unwed mothers without a father in the house too often grow up to be the violent young criminals that disrupt, threaten, and hurt so many law-abiding people in our society. On this bill I think we are beginning to do something about the problem of teenage pregnancy and illegitimate births. No one can claim any certainty about how to deal with, let alone solve, so profound and complicated a human problem. We have begun to offer some opportunities to the States particularly to make a difference. Earlier today we sustained the part of this bill that deals with illegitimacy ratios and creates bonuses to States that are doing a good job at reducing the rate of illegitimacy. Here in the amendment Senator Conrad and I have crafted, which the Republican leader has worked with us on throughout the day, I think we make another constructive contribution. We set up a national program with national goals. We recognize the startling fact that so many of the babies born to teenage mothers are actually fathered by adult men by calling on the States to once again enforce statutory rape laws, and we fund these very hopeful second- chance homes. I thank all on both sides who have worked to put this amendment together. It is constructive. It can make a difference. Let me say for the record I am not the one asking for the vote. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. As indicated, I submitted the amendment on behalf of my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Dodd, and the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Nunn. Privilege of the Floor

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask the amendment I filed at the desk, amendment No. 2514, be called up.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, there is a happy story to be told in this amendment. I appreciate the fact we have come to a bipartisan agreement here on going forward with this amendment. This amendment, I think, goes to the heart of both bills, which is work, which is taking the welfare program and changing it from a kind of income maintenance program to a work opportunity, work creation, work realization program, hopefully, and definitely in the context of the private sector. Mr. President, there are a lot of different ways, as I have spoken before on this floor, in this debate that the current welfare system is not working and does not reflect the best values of our country. Obviously, the extent to which it has helped to enable the breakdown of families, the birth of babies to teenaged young women without fathers in the house, and despair and hopelessness for the kids is profoundly troubling and has catastrophic implications for our society. But I believe that at the heart of the American people's hopes in this welfare reform debate is the question of work. In fact, a recent Wall Street Journal-NBC poll found that 62 percent of the respondents believe that work is the most important goal of welfare reform compared to 19 percent who considered reducing out-of-wedlock births as most critical. I do not mean to diminish the importance of the second goal because I think in terms of the long-term impact on the welfare rolls it is critical. But just to suggest that the most profound way in which this system has digressed from the commonly held values and beliefs of the American people is the extent to which welfare does not encourage work, the extent to which it has discouraged work, the extent to which it frustrates and infuriates so many of the American people who feel that they are out there working hard every day paying taxes, and they fear and believe that too many of their tax dollars are going to support a system, this welfare system, that does not adequately encourage, force the people on it to get up, to go out and go to work. Maybe that is why, as we look at the two basic underlying proposals that have been made here on each side of the aisle, that the word ``work'' appears in the titles that their sponsors have given them. Senator Dole's proposal is, as I understand it, entitled ``The Work Opportunity Act.'' Senator Daschle's proposal, which was heard as a substitute earlier and defeated, is called the Work First Act, and that is for the reasons that I have stated. The goal here is to cut the welfare rolls, to get people to work, and to create opportunity. As these two proposals have come along, I think we have seen some ways in which they are quite similar and ways in which they digress that have caused some concern among some of us. It is interesting and important to note similarities because sometimes in this kind of debate, they get missed. Both proposals, Senator Dole's and Senator Daschle's, set essentially the same goal when it comes to work--maybe some slight difference in wording--but that 50 percent of the people on welfare, the families, the potential income earners, be in jobs by the year 2000. It is a goal that is common to both bills. But the way we get there is different, and that is what has concerned some of us as we have watched the debate go forward. In Senator Dole's bill there is a 5-percent penalty at the end if you do not achieve the 50-percent placement of people in jobs. In Senator Daschle's bill, a different approach is taken. You might call it the carrot as opposed to the stick. And the carrot here is to say that we have to focus in and hold the States to a standard, and an important standard, which is the placement of welfare recipients in unsubsidized jobs, which is to say private sector jobs. We have some ideas looking at the experience about how to do that and where to do it, and our experience suggests building onto some of the cases and grants and programs that have been [[Page S 13505]] carried out under the Family Support Act of 1988, that the best thing to do is to not spend too much time at this business of training, although training is often necessary, but to focus on getting welfare recipients out there into a job, and then working with them and training them to make sure that they carry out that job well and that they do so in the context of the work that they are actually performing. Senator Daschle's proposal, as I said, used the carrot, and it said that what we are going to measure every year is what percentage of people on welfare in a given State have been placed into private sector jobs. It is not enough to gauge how many are in training programs, because we have done this before. And people can spend a lot of time in training programs with nowhere to go, all dressed up and no job to take, or no job that they are willing to take. This proposal, creating the personal empowerment contract, is somewhat like Senator Dole's bill, which basically says when people sign up for welfare they have to sign a contract, and it has mutual responsibility--no more blank check. You get a welfare check. It is not even called a welfare check anymore; it is a temporary employment assistance check, and one of the things you have to continue to do to get that check is to go out and work, accept any job that is offered, understanding that that is better than being on welfare, and that it is putting you on the first step of a ladder in the private sector job market that can take you up and up to self-sufficiency. So in Senator Daschle's proposal, a bonus was given to the States, an incentive beginning in 1998, creating a pool of 3 percent of the overall block grant authorized under Senator Dole's underlying legislation; $16.8 billion a year in that block grant; 3 percent of that money in 1998, 4 percent in 1999, 5 percent in 2000, put into an incentive pool to be distributed to the States based on their success in getting people off the welfare, not into training programs, not into public works programs or those subsidized jobs, although those can be good sometimes, too, but into private sector jobs. We think that would be not only an important incentive to change the orientation in terms of the beneficiaries of welfare, the welfare recipients, but we think it would be a very healthy way to shake up the welfare bureaucracy back home in the States, to create incentives that are different from today's. Too often in today's welfare system the incentives encourage States and administrators and caseworkers alike to make income maintenance-- not job placement--their primary mission--income maintenance, write out the check, process the application, get the check to the recipient. That becomes the focus of the system, not stopping the writing of the checks, getting the recipient off of welfare and getting them out into an income earning job. The State administrators and caseworkers too often now are sent the message that it really does not matter whether or not they go the extra mile and spend the extra money to remove a recipient from welfare and into a private sector job. That is what this job placement bonus is all about. It sends a message to the States that, if they, their administrators, their case workers, go the extra mile to put somebody from welfare into a private sector job, that it will pay, that the State will receive more money, a job placement bonus, a simple yet critical tool to change the incentives in the welfare office back home from income maintenance to job placement. A bonus can, and I believe will, turn the welfare office into an employment office, which is what it ought to be. Mr. President, so we had these two different visions, and I was prepared to offer a separate amendment to incorporate the job bonus provisions of Senator Daschle's proposal into the underlying bill. We have had the opportunity to reason together. We have had some very good conversations with Senator Roth, whose modifications to Senator Dole's underlying bill I will describe in a minute, and I think we have come up with a superb compromise which I hope people on both sides of the aisle can support. Senator Roth amended the underlying proposal consistent with the work that I have been privileged to be involved in with him, in his time as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee and ranking minority member before, to try to not only create programs but to create standards by which we can judge those programs as any business would do and to reward those who perform better under the programs we have created. So in Senator Roth's amendment, and provisions included in the underlying Dole bill, a 5-percent bonus pool is created in the year 2000 which would reward the States, for instance, in proportion to the reductions that they had achieved in the length of time families were receiving welfare payments, or the increases in the number of welfare families receiving child support. In other words, how many deadbeat dads had been shaken and awakened and finally were carrying out their responsibilities. So here is the agreement I believe we have, and I am very grateful for it. It is carried out in the modification to my amendment, Mr. President, which I have sent to the desk. Under this modification, in 1998, pursuant to the Work First proposal, there would be created a pool equal to 3 percent of the national block grant of $16.8 billion which would be contributed to the States based on their success in getting people off welfare and into a private, a real private sector job. In 1998, that would begin with 3 percent. In 1999, the pool would go to 4 percent. And in the year 2000, Senator Roth's provisions remain to create a 5-percent pool that would be distributed to the States based on five factors, four of which were in Senator Roth's initial proposal, and the fifth would be the one that I have referred to which would be a measure of the extent to which the States have placed welfare recipients in private sector jobs. I think this is a superb agreement. It makes both approaches better. I think it strengthens the underlying proposal by Senator Dole. And more than the question of which side of the aisle it may have come from, or which proposal it strengthens, it puts teeth into the aim that I think all of us have, which is to get people off welfare and back to work, to save the taxpayers' money that we are now spending on a program that has created such dependency and despair, and to raise up the hopes and sense of opportunity for those who have been condemned to that life of despair on welfare. So I thank Senator Roth and his staff particularly, Senator Dole and the leadership on the Republican side, and all those who have worked with us on this side. This proposal, I take some pride in noting, for a job-placement bonus emerges from work that has been done by the Democratic Leadership Council Progressive Policy Institute aimed at creating the right incentives in this system to get people off welfare and to work. I am privileged to be the chair of that group, now having succeeded my friend and colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, who I also see in the Chamber and who I am privileged to say has been a cosponsor of this amendment with me and Senator Conrad, Senator Nunn, and Senator Dodd. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and my colleagues for their interest in this amendment and for what I hope will be unanimous support. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend and colleague from Louisiana. I thank him for all his work on this amendment. He gets right to the point, which I do want to just stress again, which is that our concern was the underlying bill by providing a 5-percent penalty at the end, at 2000, if States did not achieve the 50-percent reduction in welfare recipients to work, would be creating a situation where there might be an incentive not to comply. In other words, complying will cost some money, getting 50 percent of the welfare recipients to work will cost some money and if there is no incentive, no provision, no way that the States by good behavior can get that money, they were going to be left with a series of choices which were not going to be very good. They would either have to raise State and local taxes, deny assistance to needy families to get money, or create a situation where kids would be left at home because there was not adequate funds for child care for people to try to get off welfare and go to work. So we were worried that the alternative would be that they would start out making, unfortunately, the rational conclusion that maybe it was better not to try to reach the goal of 50-percent welfare to work, give up the 5 percent as part of the penalty because that would actually cost them less than what they needed to meet the goal. We think that putting these proposals together in this amendment now creates a positive incentive along the way--1998, 1999, 2000--among States to have them compete, if you will, to have a greater part of that pool we are creating to see which State can place more people into private sector jobs and therefore receive more money. Again, I thank my friend from Louisiana, and I yield the floor. Mr. President, if there is no further debate, it had been my understanding that this was acceptable on both sides. As I said before, I really want to stress, with some sense of gratitude, the support that Senator Roth has given in putting this together, I gather, agreed to by leadership on the Republican side, and I sure hope this is part of a sense of compromise but also honing our purposes and coming together in ways that will allow us to achieve a strong bipartisan majority in favor of true welfare reform. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a modification of the amendment that I send to the desk at this time be accepted.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Cindy Baldwin, who is a presidential management intern fellow in my office this year, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the debate on welfare reform.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. I do want to introduce an amendment following Senator Coats, but I have listened to the debate and I do want to say a few words of support because I think my colleagues are onto something here. The human want, the human despair, the human suffering that is the welfare crisis that we are attempting to address in this debate was not caused by government. There are many ways, I think we feel, in which government has facilitated or enabled the problem to become worse. The problem begins with people who have problems. And it will not end until those people are helped by their neighbors, by their communities, by a wide array of institutions. What I am saying is, and I think this amendment gets to this, is that government has not, itself, created the problem, although it may have exacerbated it. In the same sense, government alone will not solve the problem. We are going to need community groups, charitable groups, people finding strength within themselves. This amendment recognizes that and tries to create, in the way that we do this in America, tries to create a motivation through the tax system for people to get personally involved, once again, in greater numbers--many are now, obviously, but to be involved in greater numbers--helping their neighbors, their poor neighbors, work themselves out of poverty. So I think there is something here. There is something here, also, in the fact that this well-intentioned program that started in the 1930's, Aid to Families With Dependent Children--in that sense, the contemplation of Congress was to help the children of widows--has become so large that in some measure it has sent a message to a lot of very well-intentioned, good-natured Americans that the poverty of their neighbors is not their concern. In some ways we have become so good at governmentalizing our community responsibility that we have sent a message that individuals have less need to be responsible for those among us who are poor. This amendment cuts, also, at that conclusion and says to all of us we all have a part to play as we used to before government became so big and communities became so big. I believe that these problems of babies born to mothers who are teenagers, unmarried--a cycle, generation after generation of welfare dependency--are so deep that it will take both government and private philanthropic, charitable, and religious institutions to make it ultimately better. But the very important point that this amendment makes is that Government cannot do it alone. And I congratulate my friends for introducing the amendment and making that point. Finally, I say this. I also think they have made an important statement here in making it clear that religious organizations, faith- based organizations, should be eligible for this credit for participation in poverty assistance programs because those organizations, as I have seen in cities and poor areas throughout Connecticut, often have the greatest motivation, the greatest success rate in dealing with problems of poverty. When we bring it down to the individuals who are the beneficiaries of this program, I have yet to find a government program that could do a better job than a religious organization at instilling in the individual that necessary sense of self-worth which is the precondition to any genuine and hopeful effort to make that person's life better--based, of course, on the insight that my friend and colleague from Indiana referred to generally, which is that if you begin to see yourself as a child of God, and in that sense appreciate your value, then you are going to be better able to go ahead and remake your life in a way that testifies to that insight. I know this amendment is going to be withdrawn. I do think the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from Missouri, and the Senator from Pennsylvania made a very important point here. I hope we can come back to it. I hope we will have the opportunity to come back to it, to try to truly not only make government more efficient in dealing with poverty, but to tap the truly powerful good nature of the American people that is out there and, I think, ready to be tapped to help those of their neighbors who are poorer in money and in hope and in opportunity than they are. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, earlier this year I introduced S. 131, a bill that would remove the applicability of regulation E of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act for all electronic benefits transfer [EBT] programs established under Federal, State, or local law, with the exception of when payments are made directly into a consumer's account. I introduced this legislation for the purposes of removing the barriers for States so that they could implement EBT. Although regulation E provides many protections for the consumer, the States see it as barrier to implementing EBT because it requires States to be liable for lost and stolen benefits over $50. This added liability could result in added administrative costs. At the time I introduced this bill, I expected cash-assistance welfare programs to continue to be federally regulated. But now, it appears that our largest cash-assistance program for low-income people, Aid to Families With Dependent Children [AFDC], will be block granted and there will no longer be Federal oversight in many areas. Because of this, we must be somewhat more careful in exempting cash assistance and other welfare programs that use electronic benefit transfers from all of the provisions of regulation E. I want to explain why there may be problems in adopting the current language in the House welfare bill that exempts electronic benefit transfers [EBT] from regulation E. Electronic benefit transfers are the transfers and distributions of Federal and State benefit programs through electronic banking techniques. The Electronic Fund Transfer Act governs all ATM transactions and point-of-service sales such as the use of your credit card or ATM card at the grocery store. The act assures individuals that their complaints about unauthorized uses and systems problems will be attended to in a timely manner. Other protections provided by regulation E include the disclosure of information to the consumer about their rights. I'm sure that most Members would agree that these provisions are fair and should be applied to welfare recipients as well as the general banking population. Indeed, States that currently have EBT already provide most of these services. Under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act [EFTA] the cardholder is only responsible for up to $50 if the card is lost or stolen and benefits are withdrawn. EFTA requires cardholders to have a personal identification number [PIN] which should prevent unauthorized withdrawal of benefits even if the card is stolen. This number should only be known by the recipient so if the card is stolen, the thief would not be able to gain access to the benefits. In an EBT system, if money is stolen from the account the State would be liable for all benefits beyond the $50 limit. This single provision opens EBT to fraud and abuse which could result in very high costs to the States. The States have said that this potential liability would prevent them from going forward with the implementation of EBT programs. EBT holds many benefits for the administering agency and the recipient. EBT delivers benefits more cost-effectively and eliminates the need to print and process food stamps. It also eliminates postal fees for sending out checks and authorizing documents. It can provide substantial protections against fraud and theft. There is a successful EBT demonstration project in Ramsey [[Page S 13552]] County, MN. Ninety-five percent of recipients in Ramsey County prefer EBT over checks and food stamps. It allows recipients to have their monthly benefits on the date that they are available, instead of when the Postal Service finally delivers them. It also allows the recipient to bypass check cashing fees and to withdraw small amounts at a time, making them less of a target for mugging. Senator Dole's welfare reform proposal S. 1120, as well as Senator Daschle's proposed substitute, the Work First proposal, would exempt only food stamp benefits distributed by EBT from regulation E. I support these provisions, for now, because the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture would continue to have authority to ensure there are adequate protections. For example, it is my understanding that the Secretary could require the application of regulation E to food stamps if the States or banks abuse the system. But the same would not be true for AFDC if the Congress were to convert the program to a block grant for cash assistance. Under a block grant beneficiaries would have no recourse if banks or the State agencies did not act responsibly. In contrast, the House has taken a different approach and has exempted all needs-tested Government programs that make use of EBT from regulation E. For reasons I have described, I do not think this is appropriate. I believe legislation that effects regulation E's application to EBT needs more thought. We need to consider how to minimize State liability while still maintaining protections for recipients using EBT. Congress should take the short-term step of eliminating the $50 liability limit. Other requirements of regulation E, such as the requirement to address complaints in a timely manner, may continue to be necessary to ensure that recipients in Federal cash- assistance welfare programs are treated fairly. The Federal Reserve Board has already determined that regulation E shall apply to all EBT programs as of February 1997. We need to act on this issue soon so that States will not see the impending implementation of regulation E as a barrier to starting EBT programs. I would like to work with my colleagues to eliminate barriers to the States' use of EBT so that States will not be dissuaded from implementing EBT programs.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from North Dakota for his outstanding statement and for the work that we have done together to fashion this amendment. I am proud to be his cosponsor of it. Mr. President, there has been considerable talk in this debate about the problem of babies born out of wedlock, particularly babies born out of wedlock to teenage mothers, as well there should be. It has a direct and powerful effect on the welfare caseload. The fact is that although teenage mothers themselves make up only a small percentage of the welfare caseload today, only 8 percent in 1994, the fact is over half of the mothers on welfare today had their first children when they were teenagers. The problem of teenage pregnancy is central to the problem of welfare. To state the obvious, but sometimes it is important to do so, this has been constructed as a program of aid for dependent children. More than half of the mothers on welfare have dependent children because they had babies when they were teenagers and there is no father around. Obviously, we are focusing on this problem of babies being born out of wedlock and babies being born to teenagers out of wedlock because it is a more broadly threatening social catastrophe that is affecting our country. Take a look at the statistics with regard to prisoners in our jails today and you will find a startling number of them were born to mothers out of wedlock and grew up with no fathers in the house. In trying in this bill to do something about teenage pregnancy and babies born out of wedlock generally, I think we are trying to do something not only to reform the welfare system but to make ours a safer society, and in the process to save some of these children born to poor teenage mothers, born to a life which in most ways is without hope for the mother and for the child. Senator Conrad and I are thinking of fashioning the broadest approach to this problem of teenage pregnancy that will be part of this debate. I hope our colleagues on both sides will look at the details of this proposal and join in trying to create, really, a national crusade against teenage pregnancy. A national crusade which can be directed by a Federal official which will feature a national clearinghouse so that States and private and philanthropic charitable institutions can share ideas about programs that have to cut the rate of teenage pregnancy. A national campaign which will set national goals and give each State the goal of reducing their teenage pregnancy rate by 2 percent a year. It does not sound like a lot, but today it is skyrocketing in the other direction. Create a goal of involving 25 percent of the communities in America in teenage pregnancy prevention programs. Then to put some money behind all this to take the existing title 20 program which covers a host of social programs for the poor, and mandate that each State use 5 percent of the money they receive under title 20 for teen pregnancy prevention activities. It is that critical a problem facing our country. Mr. President, the birth [[Page S 13531]] rate for single teenage parents has tripled since 1960 from 15 to 45 births per 1,000 unmarried girls age 15 to 19. More than a third of the babies born in America today are born out of wedlock. It is a startling change in sociology in the family and reflects a startling change in values. We spend a lot of time talking about why it has happened. I will come back to this in a while. Some of it has to do with the messages that the media are sending our kids as they grow up. Some of it clearly has to do with an increasing sense of sexual permissiveness which we see by these stunning numbers is not without its consequences and its victims. Its victims are the poor babies born to poverty with a teenage mother without a father in the House. What kind of hope can that poor child have to make something decent of his or her life. I think the change in values has had its consequences here. I fear that the welfare system has all been part of the problem. I do not say it has created the problem. It is much more complicated than that. There is no question in my mind based on reading I have done, based on conversations I have had with young women who have had babies out of wedlock when they were teenagers, that the existence of the welfare system has in some measure facilitated, enabled, made more likely, the birth of babies out of wedlock to teenage girls. We all pay the price for that consequence. That is why dealing with the problem of teenage pregnancy, dealing with the problem of babies born out of wedlock, has to be a central part of our effort at welfare reform. Each year about 1 million teenage girls become pregnant and confront the consequence of that pregnancy. About half of those girls have their babies. Half a million babies, roughly 40 percent have abortions, and another 10 percent of those teen mothers miscarry. Well over 60 percent of the teenage mothers are single. They are not married. For those single mothers who raise their babies, the consequences are obviously grim, particularly if the mother does not have at least a high school education. Of course, many who are below the age of 17 or 18, who have their babies, do not have a high school education. As William Raspberry, columnist, noted in the Washington Post, children born to parents who had their child born out of wedlock before they finished high school and reached the age of 20 are almost guaranteed a life of poverty. Bearing a child in your teens as a single mother is simply wrong, and our society must give that message to men and women who are responsible for the birth of those babies to single teenage mothers. It is contrary to our values. It is contrary to our interests. It is contrary to the interests of those young women and the children they bear. Unfortunately, our current welfare policies too often send the opposite message, and that is why they need to be changed. We need to require teenage parents who receive welfare to live at home with their own families or, if that is not appropriate, in adult supervised group homes, some of the Second Chance Homes that Senator Conrad has described so well, that will be enabled by the amendment that we offer tonight. In my conversations with young women who gave birth to babies out of wedlock when they were teenagers, and I asked them, ``Why did you do it,'' I must say, first, I was impressed by the overwhelming percentage of these young women I spoke to who said, ``Senator, I love my baby, but I wish I had not had the baby when I was so young.'' I would say, Why did you do it, as you look back at it? Some said the obvious: ``I did not protect myself when having sex.'' Others said, ``I did it in part because I knew if I had a baby I would be able to go on welfare, and that welfare check would enable me to move out of my house and to become independent.'' Any of us who have raised teenage kids know that they all want to be independent. The idea that these young women would have incorporated a value system, or lack of such, that would lead them to want to have a baby to get the welfare check to move out of their houses, that is a sad commentary on where we are. And that is why it is so critical to require, and send a message, that that is not going to be the way out of the house anymore. If you are a teenage mother and you want welfare, you have to live at home or you have to live in a supervised group home setting, such as the superior Second Chance Homes that Senator Conrad has described. We ought to require them to stay in school and to take parenting classes. It is no excuse, and it ought not to be an excuse, for young women who have babies to drop out of school. The amendment that we have proposed tonight builds on this foundation by establishing the national goals that I have talked about and the clearinghouse. Let me briefly discuss these provisions. I think if we want to make significant progress on this issue, we have to set national goals. That is what Senator Conrad and I have done in this amendment. We have to be able to measure our progress toward those goals. This amendment establishes that goal, reducing out-of- wedlock teen pregnancy rates by 2 percent a year. The purpose of the national goal is to galvanize the efforts of the public and private sector to address this problem. As President Clinton said on August 9 when he visited North Carolina, ``Teenage pregnancy is not a problem that we in Government alone can fix.'' How right he was. President Clinton said he is working to get all the leaders of all sectors of our society involved in this fight. I think we, in this welfare reform legislation, can add momentum and support to his effort by establishing clear national goals that both private and public sector organizations can aim at and rally around. We have to put our energy where it is most likely to make a difference in children's lives. In shaping policies to achieve the goals we are setting out here, I think we have to keep in mind some of the terrible facts about pregnant teenage girls. As Kathleen Sylvester of the Progressive Policy Institute said in a recent Washington Post op-ed, ``Most teenage mothers come from poor, dysfunctional families. Many have been neglected or abused.'' This is the cycle of poverty and dysfunction that continues from generation to generation. Ms. Sylvester reported that as many as two-thirds were victims of rape or sexual abuse at an early age. And, sadly, the abuser was often a member of their household. That is why we are talking about Second Chance Homes tonight. As a consequence, teenage mothers start out extremely vulnerable to the sexual advances of older men. Mr. President, there was a recent study done by the Alan Guttmacher Institute that produced results that we have discussed here on the floor before, but I found them startling. Bringing together a number of studies, they reported that half of the babies, at least half of the babies born to teenage mothers, were fathered by an adult man. I must say that my vision of this problem was that these children being born to teenage mothers were the result of casual, irresponsible sex with two teenagers. Not so, according to this study--in most cases, in more than half the cases. The younger the mother, according to the study, the greater the age difference between her and the father of the baby. Among California mothers, in one study of mothers aged 11 to 15-- between the ages of 11 to 15--women, young girls, who would carry the baby to birth, 51 percent of them said that the fathers of those babies were adults, were over 18. There are studies we could go on and on with. But the point is that these are appalling findings, and they cry out to us to try to do something to protect these young women. When we talked about these statistics a few days ago on the floor, the senior Senator from New York, Senator Moynihan, stood and made a point that I found very provocative and also, I think, insightful, which is that, tragically, too often we are dealing here with girls growing up in poor families without a father in the house, and part of what that means is that there is not an older man in the house to protect his daughter from the unwanted advances of another older man, one of the roles--a role so primal that we tend not even to think about it--that the father in an intact family normally will play. [[Page S 13532]] So part of this amendment that Senator Conrad and I have introduced tries to begin to get at this problem by expressing the sense of the Senate that the States, which are the main enforcers of criminal law in our society, have to look again at laws that we barely ever mention these days that used to be very much a part of our lives and the life of the courts, which is to say laws against statutory rape, to say it is a crime for an adult man to have sex with a woman who is a minor. Perhaps, again, as part of the sense that consenting people should do whatever they want sexually, the general tone of sexual permissiveness in our society, these laws have either been amended down or out of existence, or if they are in existence, they are rarely enforced today. I suggest to my colleagues that Senator Conrad and I include in this appeal to the States raising the question of whether it might not just be one deterrent to an adult man--who, in this case, could well be a sexual predator, an aggressor with a younger woman--to think twice if that man knows that the statutory rape laws are going to be enforced once again in that State. In trying to put some money behind the general program that we have outlined, I mentioned the use of title XX funds. The amendment would require that 5 percent of the title XX social services block grant be committed by the States to teenage pregnancy prevention programs, and that is not a small sum. That equals $140 million a year to begin to help the States try a multitude of responses to this social disaster that is occurring in our society and that is affecting every one of us, whether we see it or feel it immediately--certainly affecting us in the increasing rate of violent crime among young people. Mr. President, a second and final word about the idea of a clearinghouse which the amendment would establish at the Department of Health and Human Services. We are dealing here with a profound, complicated, difficult social problem. There are a lot of ways to go at it--law enforcement, and statutory rape is one. But we need to encourage the widest array of experiments with dealing with this problem at the State level. And the aim there is to then share that program with programs that work with other States and philanthropic and private charitable groups around the country. The fact is that we are beginning to know something about what works. The Henry Kaiser Foundation several months ago published a monograph that reviewed the effectiveness of 123 sex education curricula programs and their policy implications. Their work was supported by a diverse group of organizations, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Population Council. And the study's key findings include the following: Sex education in school-based health centers do not increase frequency of sexual activity among high school students or reduce the age when they first become sexually active. Some school-based clinics, but not all, actually delayed the age of first sexual activity, and increased contraceptive use resulting in fewer pregnancies. Programs that are effective focus on three behaviors: One is to protect oneself sexually. The second is abstinence. And the third is how to resist the pressure--peer pressure, or pressure from an individual, a man--to have sex. To be effective, the school-based sex education programs have to be tailored to the populations they serve. That was the message of those studies. Finally, and very critically, the studies concluded that sex education programs should not be value neutral. Those that gave students sexual information and told them to make their own judgments were not effective in changing behavior. In other words, we have to stop our sense of neutrality, a sense that anything goes in this society, because there are consequences when anything goes, and they are terrible for our society. We have to preach and teach a very clear message. Sexual activity at an early age, activity that results in teenage pregnancy, is simply wrong. It ought not to happen. It is unacceptable. It is a disaster for the mother involved, for the baby involved, and for our society. That is the kind of information that I believe can be shared through the clearinghouse that would be set up under this amendment. Mr. President, let me say a final related word, and that is about the role of the media. I think the media has had generally a negative effect on values in our society. And I think they could have an extremely positive effect because their impact on our kids is so powerful. A growing body of evidence, in my opinion, supports the conclusion that the pervasiveness of sexual messages on television, in the movies, and in music has contributed to the dramatic rise in the number of teenagers having sex, and in turn the rise in teen pregnancies. Mr. President, I need not belabor this point. But I saw a recent study about the number of sex acts that one can see on an average day watching soap operas, the number of sexual references that one can hear and see in prime time on television, and the number of sexual topics that are discussed, usually not normal behavior, on TV talk shows. I think the cumulative effect of all of that, as Senator Moynihan has said so well, is to define deviancy down to the behavior that was not only not done much in earlier time but certainly not talked about, and hold it up as a kind of standard of normalcy; at worst, something to giggle about. We are paying the price for that. I think it is time that those who put shows on television and who run the networks appreciate it. The most compelling evidence in this connection is a poll that was taken of children themselves by a group that I believe was called Children Now, a survey of children aged 10 to 16. And when asked the question 62 percent of them said that they believe that what they saw on television encouraged them to have sex earlier than they should have. I hope that those who put those shows on television will begin to think more seriously about the consequences of what they are putting on. It is exactly these concerns that were part of what led Senator Conrad and I to introduce the amendment on the telecommunications bill that passed with a strong bipartisan support that would call on TV set manufacturers to put in what we call the ``choice chip,'' to let parents choose what their kids will see and that requires TV networks to rate the programs that they put on. Mr. President, the electronic media have enormous influence, and they could use it for good, and in many cases they have used it for good. One of the best known examples I think is the way the entertainment industry embraced the campaign against drunk drivers through a conscious effort to weave portrayals of designated drivers into a number of TV shows in addition to the outright commercial messages against drunk driving. The entertainment industry and television particularly played a critically important role in helping to reduce the number of alcohol-related fatalities. There is simply no reason that they could not make a similar commitment on behalf of the campaign against teen pregnancy. I think another way we can encourage the media to become allies is in the use of direct advertising such as was done in the campaign against drunk driving. And the Maryland State government provides us with an excellent example of the potential that lies in this approach. In 1988 it embarked on what might be called a media blitzkrieg to combat teen pregnancies. The State was saturated with advertisements on television, radio, billboards, buses, as well as videos, brochures, and special lessons that were distributed in schools. More than $7 million was spent on the TV and radio spots alone. In the first 3 years of the campaign, birth rates and abortions dropped. And by 1991 the State reported a 13-percent decrease in teen pregnancies, which in this field is startling, and in this case very encouraging. The media campaign could not singlehandedly account for those changes. But it is clear to me--and I think most who have looked at this study--that it played a very significant role in that reduction. [[Page S 13533]] Perhaps the best indication of its effectiveness was the fact that in a followup study 94 percent of the students and teachers at five middle schools in Maryland knew about the campaign, and could repeat the campaign slogans verbatim. So we have a real problem on our hands here, and we are all suffering the consequences of it. This amendment that Senator Conrad and I have put forward tonight is a an attempt to put our Nation on the course of an urgent, intense, and comprehensive campaign to cut down the rate of teenage pregnancies. I thank my colleague from North Dakota for the partnership that we have once again established. It is always a pleasure and an honor to work with Senator Conrad, particularly, as is normally the case with us, in a good cause. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am going to withhold for a moment. I see my friend and colleague from North Dakota with whom I am cosponsoring the next amendment coming onto the floor. It is appropriate that he call up the amendment and begin the debate.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with the Senator from Michigan in proposing this important statement of Senate support for an enhanced enterprise zone effort. From the time I came to the Senate in 1989, I have been proud to work with people like Jack Kemp in advocating enterprise zones for America's troubled neighborhoods. He has been a true visionary, not only on the subject of enterprise zones, but on the whole question of what America must do to redeem the promise of economic opportunity for all Americans. We made progress on the road toward empowering poor Americans and revitalizing impoverished communities in 1993 when we passed legislation creating empowerment zones and enterprise communities in more than 100 neighborhoods across this country. While a handful of empowerment zones received fairly substantial incentives through the 1993 legislation the enterprise zones received very little in the way of incentives. Still, when all is said and done, enactment of this legislation was a fundamental change in urban policy. It was a recognition that Government did not have all the answers to the ills of poverty in this country. It recognized that American businesses can and must play a role in revitalizing poor neighborhoods. Indeed, American business involvement is essential if we are to break the cycle of poverty, drug abuse, illiteracy, and unemployment. The 1993 breakthrough was a good start but it did not go far enough. That is why I have joined with the Senator from Michigan in announcing an Enhanced Enterprise Zone Act of 1995. The sense-of-the-Senate we are considering today recognizes the need for this Senate to consider an enhanced enterprise zone package. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.